


Impossible

by Arynphallia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 08:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arynphallia/pseuds/Arynphallia
Summary: She doesn't actually remember getting the tattoo. Only remembers waking up one morning with Bad Wolf scrawled across her chest where a second heart would be if she were a Time Lord.It's an impulse decision, really. In one of his fits of self loathing and the overwhelming weight of just how much he misses Rose, he gets a tattoo.





	Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 45 mins. Inspired by this post: https://gingerteaonthetardis.tumblr.com/post/187141868181/darthtella-gingerteaonthetardis

She doesn't actually remember getting the tattoo. Only remembers waking up one morning with Bad Wolf scrawled across her chest where a second heart would be if she were a Time Lord.

It feels right, fits with her newly remembered time as a goddess on the Game Station. It's a message across time and space and apparently, universes. A message to lead herself to the Doctor. 

If she presses her fingers to them, the words seem to thrum and pulse, similar enough to the way the TARDIS hummed that Rose has taken to sleeping with her hands curled to her chest because it helps her sleep. Every once in a while, her tattoo burns sending tendrils of fire under her skin and she suddenly knows that her cell phone would be perfect for helping them hone in on the right universe, knows to duck during a jump and just avoids getting hit by an energy blast. 

Then they burn and she realizes she's found the right universe, even if she hasn't found the Doctor yet.

They burn and she manages to dodge just in time to avoid getting hit by one of the cultists who've taken up protesting outside of Torchwood. They call her a freak and she wonders if they know just how right they are. 

They burn and she lands on an impossible planet with red grass and silver trees. Two suns hang in the burnt orange sky, it's one of the prettiest planets she's ever been to and she can't resist picking one of the blue flowers that grow in the field she's landed in. Something about this planet feels distinctly familiar. Like it's one of the places the Doctor would describe before promising to take her. 

She keeps jumping. Keeps running, keeps finding wonderful impossible things she can't wait to tell the Doctor about. But she has to save the multiverse first. 

* * *

* * *

It's an impulse decision, really. In one of his fits of self loathing and the overwhelming weight of just how much he misses Rose, he gets a tattoo. Well, two tattoos, really. The first is on his left wrist; because that's the hand she held the most, up just high enough to be hidden by his shirt sleeves. Just a simple rose, though, nothing about roses is simple. 

It's nearly identical to the one he had in his last body, the one he got on a whim (he knows now it was more than that) before he met Rose Tyler. 

The second is pressed into the front of his left shoulder. This one he gets after he realizes Martha is flirting with him. After he realizes just how many people flirt with him. It should flatter him, but all he can think of is Rose and that these people shouldn't be allowed to flirt with him because he belongs to Rose. 

So he takes a trip to the same tattoo parlor he's always gone to (The Corsair had sworn by the place) and gets  _ Bad Wolf _ on his shoulder so he's got some sort of proof that he belongs to someone, that he'll always belong to someone.

He wonders if his next body will follow the trend and ensure that he is always marked as Rose's. Must do, he decides. He may have never told her, but he knows that Rose Tyler is  _ everything _ . 

The tattoo bring a sort of melancholy when he sees it. Its soothing in a way, especially with how often people flirt with him; to have something that proclaims him as Rose's, even if he's the only one who will ever see it. 

But still, it's just enough to keep him sane on the days he feels closest to madness. The days he spends in the depths of the TARDIS, raging against the universe for not letting him keep the one good thing in his very long life. 

Those are the days that Donna manages to lry information about Rose from him; the TARDIS usually sends her along with a cuppa and biscuits after he's worn himself out. And by the time she finds him, he's too emotionally worn to refuse her questions, too raw to contain everything. 

Donna, marvel that she is, listens to him without objection or snide comment, teases him just enough that he's able to pull himself back together before he falls over that final edge and decides that the universe is worth less than his need for Rose. It's not fair to Donna, to have the weight of this put in her too, but she never complains and he's too selfish to send her away when she offers.

He finally shows her the tattoo one day after she catches him rubbing it through his shirt one too many times and gets naturally curious, as humans are prone to. 

"But what does it mean, bad wolf?" She asks. 

"Its a message. Across all of time and space." He responds, slowly buttoning his shirt back up. 

This doesn't satisfy her, "A message of what?"

"To lead Rose to places she needs to be." He snaps, feeling exposed. 

Donna's eyes go soft, "Oh, Doctor." She says softly and he can't stand her pity. She far she hasn't shown any, just been a shoulder to cry on, so to speak; not that he's done any crying. At least, not in front of Donna. 

"I'm fine." He snaps. 

"I know." She responds, knowing that he's lying and they never talk about it again. 

  
  


It's on a deserted street in the middle of a dalek invasion that his tattoo does something it's never done before: it  _ burns _ . He suppresses a gasp and his hope, turning to ask Donna if Rose had told her anything else in that fractured timeline. 

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" She says and his hearts stop. 

He turns slowly, refusing to hope. But there she is, impossible and magnificent. She beams at him and his hearts start beating again. 

His tattoo is still burning but he ignores it. Nothing else matters because Rose is  _ here _ . Rose is  _ back _ . His feet move with little prompting and he all but flies down the street, desperate to get to her. 

They slam together and her arms automatically wrap around his neck, his snake around her waist and hold her firmly to him, fingers digging into her back. "Rose." He whispers, pressing his nose into her hair to catch the scent of her shampoo. 

"'M here, Doctor." She promises and he feels like crying and laughing all at once. She is here, his brilliant Rose Tyler. 

"You're impossible." He tells her and she laughs. "Absolutely impossible, Rose Tyler."

  
  



End file.
